By Failing To Restrain Saddam, U.s. Policy Was Interventionist

ANOTHER VIEW

April 10, 1991|BY HENRI J. BARKEY and RAJAN MENON

Critics of current U.S. policy in Iraq have rightly pointed out that we have betrayed our moral principles by abandoning the Kurds to the remnants of Saddam Hussein's war machine. But what is not sufficiently understood is that, in the process, we also have served poorly our long-term interests. In other words, we have failed the tests of both morality and realpolitik.

Our current policy in Iraq will have several undesirable consequences: the persistence of militarized, undemocratic regimes there, the aggravation of Turkey's problems with its Kurdish minority, the obstruction of an Arab-Israeli peace accord and the loss of public support for the commitment of American power abroad.

This latest Kurdish rebellion has been unlike any in the past. It is national in scope, embracing not merely resistance fighters in the mountains, but, as events in the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk showed, the urban intelligentsia and middle class as well.

The destruction that Saddam Hussein's forces have visited upon Kurdistan will not soon be forgotten by its inhabitants. The Iraqi Kurds are certain to continue their armed struggle. This, in turn, will foster a succession of repressive, Saddam-like regimes in Baghdad. Thus there is a contradiction between President Bush's desire for a democratic Iraq and the administration's decision to sit and watch Saddam's genocide against the Kurds.

Our policy will guarantee that the hard-line proponents of uncompromising armed struggle will carry the day as the Kurds of Iraq debate the nature of their future strategy toward Baghdad. A similar outcome will most likely occur among the Kurds in Turkey. They, too, have been engaged in a protracted struggle for national rights. In the process, there have been heated debates between advocates of independence through military means and more moderate elements who see the possibility of negotiating to gain autonomy.

Those holding the latter point of view have been the principal victims of Saddam's bloody campaign in Kurdistan, resulting in vindication for hard-liners such as the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK) in Turkey. Saddam's savagery against the Iraqi Kurds will bolster the proponents of violent struggle among their brethren in Turkey, who have argued that pursuit of Kurdish rights through negotiations and the reliance on outside help are doomed to fail.

The administration's abandonment of the Kurds also will hamper the prospects for Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. By coming to the defense of Kuwait, the U.S. demonstrated to the Israelis that smaller countries in the region could rely on American power to guarantee their existence. In future Middle East peace talks, the name of the game will be Israel's willingness to trade land for peace. But no Israeli government will part with vital areas such as the West Bank if the reliability of American protection is in doubt. The betrayal of the Kurds will diminish the Israeli sense of confidence in the U.S. that is so vital to future peace negotiations.

Finally, by departing from the moral principles upon which it mounted Kuwait's rescue, Washington risks endangering public support for its future policies abroad. Public support for the war was deeply rooted in the American conviction that justice and moral principles were at stake. Our history shows that when the public doubts the moral soundness of foreign policy ventures, failure is bound to follow. Reports indicate that American soldiers are dismayed by their inability to protect the victim's of Saddam's carnage. Weakening Saddam but leaving him free to butcher his own people may cause the public to move from euphoria to disillusionment.

The administration has defended its policy as one that respects the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. Talleyrand once observed that there are times when non-intervention is a form of intervention. Our failure to restrain Saddam will shape the future of internal order in Iraq, and will have profound consequences for Middle East stability. In this sense, our policy is extremely interventionist.